as
heterodox, arrived, like the Anglican divines, at the conclusion,
that no excess of tyranny on the part of a prince can justify active
resistance on the part of a subject. No libel on the government had ever
been traced to a Quaker. [293] In no conspiracy against the government
had a Quaker been implicated. The society had not joined in the clamour
for the Exclusion Bill, and had solemnly condemned the Rye House plot as
a hellish design and a work of the devil. [294] Indeed, the friends then
took very little part in civil contentions; for they were not, as now,
congregated in large towns, but were generally engaged in agriculture,
a pursuit from which they have been gradually driven by the vexations
consequent on their strange scruple about paying tithe. They were,
therefore, far removed from the scene of political strife. They
also, even in domestic privacy, avoided on principle all political
conversation. For such conversation was, in their opinion, unfavourable
to their spirituality of mind, and tended to disturb the austere
composure of their deportment. The yearly meetings of that age
repeatedly admonished the brethren not to hold discourse touching
affairs of state. [295] Even within the memory of persons now living
those grave elders who retained the habits of an earlier generation
systematically discouraged such worldly talk. [296] It was natural that
James should make a wide distinction between these harmless people and
those fierce and reckless sects which considered resistance to tyranny
as a Christian duty which had, in Germany, France, and Holland, made
war on legitimate princes, and which had, during four generations, borne
peculiar enmity to the House of Stuart.

It happened, moreover, that it was possible to grant large relief to the
Roman Catholic and to the Quaker without mitigating the sufferings of
the Puritan sects. A law was in force which imposed severe penalties on
every person who refused to take the oath of supremacy when required to
do so. This law did not affect Presbyterians, Independents, or Baptists;
for they were all ready to call God to witness that they renounced all
spiritual connection with foreign prelates and potentates. But the Roman
Catholic would not swear that the Pope had no jurisdiction in England,
and the Quaker would not swear to anything. On the other hand, neither
the Roman Catholic nor the Quaker was touched by the Five Mile Act,
which, of all the laws in the Statute